Gizmorama: Life in the tech age

IF YOU SEE IT, FLEE IT

Recently, an 12-year-old boy was killed by lightning while pulling a boat out of a lake. Tragedies such as this might be avoided with some common sense.

Amazingly, 90 percent of those injured by a lightning strike survive, but often have disabilities or medical problems.

Emergency Medical experts who have studied the effects of lightning conclude that many of these people are killed or injured because of misinformation and inappropriate behavior during a thunderstorm.

There is, for example, a common myth that people struck by lightning carry a charge. This is utter nonsense, and it is safe to touch a person who has been struck to provide medical treatment.

According to Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, (an emergency physician with the University of Chicago in Illinois and a co-author of an article in the June 2002 Annals of Emergency Medicine regarding lightning safety), there are certain guidelines.

While there is no guarantee these guidelines will prevent all injuries, they constitute a summary of the safest practices based on the best research and experience currently available.

Of course, you know that no place is absolutely safe from the threat of lightning. There are, however, some places that are safer than others. The experts and researchers say that these places are about the safest:

-- Large structures with plumbing and electrical wiring (houses, schools, office buildings).

-- Fully enclosed metal vehicles (cars, buses, trucks). Please note that it is important to roll up windows and avoid contact with metal or conducting surfaces outside or inside the vehicle.

Unfortunately, the list of places to avoid during a lightning story is a bit longer:

-- Tall structures (any kind of pole or tower).

-- Open fields

-- Open structures or open vehicles (gazebos, shelters, baseball dugouts, convertibles, golf carts).

-- Water(oceans, beaches, lakes, rivers, indoor or outdoor pools). Yes, indoor pools. Lightning is looking for a conductive ground and does not care about the roof over the pool.

-- Avoid contact with conductive materials (anything that conducts or runs on

electricity).

The simple rule is "If you see it, flee it; if you hear it, clear it."

Don't bother counting seconds between the flash and the boom. Which flash

and which boom? What if you are deceived by the sequence? Use the simple

rule. Be safe, not zapped.

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